Budget-strapped state is counting on $1 billion of new revenues from program to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, but some say intense focus on making money from auctioning emission allowances has obscure

Brown has drawn some fire for suggesting that a share be allocated to the controversial high-speed rail project. Others suggest shares go to transportation needs, arguing that improved roads that ease gridlock would reduce emissions from vehicles stuck in traffic.

Supplanting existing funding also has some critics wondering about using auction revenues to maintain the status quo.

“Would it be used to offset what we are already doing? That makes it look like a tax,” said Dorothy Rothrock, who represents a coalition of affected industries. Rothrock and many affected industries question whether being forced to buy allowances constitutes an illegal tax since it wasn’t approved by two-thirds of the Legislature.

Alarmed by growing evidence that greenhouse-gas emissions were contributing to global warming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 32 in 2006. The law, which was later upheld by voters, requires industry to gradually reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

It granted broad authority to the state Air Resources Board to implement wide ranging regulations aimed at achieving that reduction goal.

Cap and trade is the most complex and costly of the various measures subsequently adopted by the board.

Global warming is believed by many, but not all, climate experts to be causing disruptions in normal weather patterns that, if left unchecked, could increase the intensity of wildfires, upend food production and impact wildlife.

Friday: Lawmakers want to pass a budget by this date that counts on $1 billion generated by auctioning allowances.

November: The state Air Resources Board sponsors the first cap-and-trade auction.

2013: Major emitters, such as factories, cement plants and utilities will have to comply.